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STEPHEN VAN EENSSELAER. 

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BORN 1789, DIED 1868. 



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JOEL MUNSELL 

1868. 



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A DISCOURSE, 

IN MEMORY OF STEPHEN VAN EENSSELAEE, PREACHED IN THE FIRST 
REFORMED CHURCH, ALBANY, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 31, 1868, BY 
REV. RUFUS W. CLARK, D.D. 



Tliou sJialt come to tliy grave in a full age^ike as a shock 
of corn cometli in^ in his season. — Job v, 26. 

This promise, has, in relation to one of our 
number, been recently fulfilled. Ripe in years, 
in honors and in virtues; after having passed 
through the spring, summer, autumn and winter of 
human life, our venerable brother has been taken, 
by the great reaper, to the harvest world above. 
On Monday last, at noon, when the sun was in the 
meridian, he passed to the world of light, where 
there is perpetual day, and where no nights' shad- 
ows fall upon the children of God. At the very 
hour, when nature was clothed in her spring 
beauties ; when the leaves and the flowers were 
filling the air around his mansion with their 
fragrance, and the birds were singing their sweet 
songs, his spirit passed to the Paradise above, 
where flowers never fade, nor fruits decay — where 



the atmosphere is ever filled with the far sweeter 
songs of angels and the redeemed. 

Through a kind providence, he was permitted 
to go to heaven, from the very house, in which, on 
the 29th day of March, 1789, he was born. After 
an eventful life of nearly eighty years, during 
which he had passed through perils, incident to a 
long earthly career; and had varied experiences 
of joy and of sorrow ; after returning to his home 
and enjoying years of tranquillity surrounded by 
an endeared family, and a large circle of friends, 
he peacefully resigns his earthly' life where he 
had received it, and departs to enjoy the life ever- 
lasting. 

In entering upon a sketch of the life and cha- 
racter of our beloved, venerated friend, I am greatly 
embarrassed at the outset, by his known and ex- 
pressed aversion to any public eulogy, or even to 
a recital in a funeral discourse of the prominent 
events in his life. And in this feeling, those, most 
intimately related to him, so fully concur,- that I am 
constrained, though very reluctantly, to suppress 
many facts of interest, and to sacrifice the desires 
and cherished purposes of a grateful pastor, to the 



wishes of those to whom the memory of the de- 
parted is most dear. 

Were I permitted to give expression to my own 
feelings, and to testify, as fully as I might, to the 
value of a signal illustration of a sincere Christian 
friendship, I would say much, with the hope of 
stimulating others to the culture of this most 
important feature of every genuine Christian cha- 
racter. For when I say that in this death I have 
lost a friend; that this church has lost a long 
tried and valued friend; that our institutions of 
learning and benevolent societies, mourn the loss 
of one of their noblest benefactors; and that mul- 
titudes of the poor will sadly miss the hand that 
has so often been generously extended for their 
relief, I use language, the full import of which 
can be realized only by the bereaved. And asso- 
ciated with these munificent private and public 
charities, there was an absence of the spirit of 
ostentation, and a desire that they should not be 
spoken of, such as I never knew surpassed in any 
other individual. On one occasion after he had 
been giving very large sums to the educational 
institutions of our church, reference was made to 



the feelings of approbation with which his gifts 
were regarded, when he remarked, ^* All that is 
nothing to me ; if I can only secure the approba- 
tion of God, it is all that I want." And the 
manner in which he expressed this desire showed 
that it came directly from his heart. 

We have said that this church has lost a long 
tried and valued friend. From ancestral ties; 
early associations, and personal attachments, this 
church was very dear to Elder Van Rensselaer. 
As a worshiper, or as a member, he has been 
connected with it from childhood. There are 
some now living who can remember the family 
pew in the old church edifice in State street where 
sabbath after sabbath gathered the sainted 
father, the beloved mother, the only son, and the 
only sister, all of whom now rest, in the silence of 
the grave. But what was most remarkable, in 
this changing country of ours, was the fact, that 
for nine generations back, the ancestors of our 
departed friend, were connected with this church 
organization, and were devoted to promoting its 
spiritual interests and prosperity. 

The precise date of the origin of this church 



7- 

cannot be given with any degree of certainty. 
It is said by some that the Collegiate church in 
New York was organized as early as 1619. 
Among the manuscripts of the late Eev. Dr. 
Livingston, there is reference to a list of the 
members of that church in 1622. But Dr. 
Livingston, in another of his manuscripts, says 
that '' in Albany they had ministers, as early as 
any in New York, if not before them." It is 
therefore possible that this is the oldest church 
in the country. 

But however this may be, it is certain that 
Killian Yan Kensselaer, who came to take posses- 
sion of his colony here in 1637, was identified with 
it, and the church in its then feeble state derived 
no small degree of its support from him, and his 
descendants. And, in devotion to its interests, 
the mantle has literally fallen from father to son, 
in an unbroken succession. Of the father of him 
whose remains we so lately followed to the tomb, 
it was said in a discourse delivered soon after his 
death : "An elder in the church of his fathers, he 
seemed to count it his best honor to serve the 
followers of Jesus ; and when a member of eccle- 



siastical courts, as he frequently was, he never 
shrank from any labor, nor became weary in well 
doing. It may be safely said that the church he 
so much loved, approaching, as it does, more 
nearly than any other, the order of the apostolic 
age, became dearer, and yet dearer to his heart, as 
he drew near his end." And this can be as fully 
said of the son, as of this venerated father. 

His inquiries not only of his pastor but of 
others, were very frequent, in regard to the 
spiritual condition and prosperity of the church ; 
and one of the strongest desires of his heart, amid 
the infirmities of age, was to have strength to 
come and worship again with us, in this sanctuary. 

During a very recent conversation, he expressed 
an earnest desire, and even a hope that he might 
be able to be present at our next communion 
season. Thus, by his personal interests; his 
regular attendance upon all our public services 
whenever his health would permit, and by his 
liberal contributions, he manifested the ardor of 
his love for the church of his fathers. May we 
not here express the earnest desire, that his 
mantle in this respect may fall upon many before 



9 

me. For among the Christian virtues that should 
be cultivated, that will afford satisfaction, through 
life, and in the dying hour; and that are potent 
for good, now and in the future, devotion to one's 
church, occupies a high position. There are not 
a few before me, whose ancestors, for, at least, 
several generations, have been connected with 
this church. Your fathers have worshiped God, 
and kept holy the Sabbath day, and cultivated 
their Christian graces, and made preparation for 
the happiness and glories of heaven, in union with 
this church organization. Through this church 
they labored to bring souls to Jesus, and to extend 
the kingdom of our blessed Saviour. Upon their 
children, therefore, rest peculiar obligations to do 
all in their power to sustain a church with which 
such precious historic associations and interests 
are connected. If they have not already given 
their hearts to Christ, and consecrated their lives 
to his service, and publicly professed their faith 
in him, they are under a great pressure of responsi- 
bility to do so with all possible speed. Those pious 
parents who, at this altar, dedicated you in infancy 
to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, did 



10 

so with the earnest desire and firm hope, that you 
would follow in their footsteps, as they followed 
Christ. And from the heights of the celestial 
cities in which they now dwell, they may long 
have been looking down, watching to see you 
moving towards the cross in faith and love; to 
see your heart melting under the power of divine 
truth ; to see you girding on the Christian armor, 
and fighting for the prizes of immortality. There 
is certainly nothing unreasonable in the thought 
that they form a part of the great cloud of wit- 
nesses to whom the apostle refers, under whose 
inspection the Christian is called to run with 
patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, 
the author and finisher of our faith. 

It is true, that we know but little of the con- 
nection between the spiritual world, and the 
inhabitants of this earth ; but there are evidences 
for the opinion that among the angels and re- 
deemed in heaven there is a knowledge of what 
is transpiring on earth, of which we have now no 
conception. And when the wonders of that 
world burst upon our vision, as they have so 
recently upon our departed friend, we shall see 



11 

what an array of motives exist, for the culture of 
every Christian virtue. We shall see why the 
Apostle, forgetting what was behind, and reaching 
forth unto those things which are before, pressed 
forward with so much zeal for the prize of his 
high calling. We shall see the reasons for the 
scriptural calls, " Strive to enter in at the straight 
gate ;" '' Be thou faithful unto death and thou 
shalt receive the crown of life." And the appeal 
that comes from the example of the departed, and 
from the solemnity of this hour to the descendants 
of those who have passed from this church mili- 
tant to the church triumphant, comes also with 
force to every member of this church and con- 
gregation. By the memories of the past, and by 
our hopes for the future we ask for your indivi- 
dual and cordial cooperation, in the work of ad- 
vancing here the Kedeemer's Kingdom ; of swelling, 
with divine aid, the numbers who shall pass 
through this gateway to the city of the living 
God, the Heavenly Jerusalem. We ask for your 
earnest prayers; your regular attendance upon 
the means of grace, your generous gifts to the 
treasury of the Lord, and that deep, abiding 

L.ofC. 



12 

interest in the prosperity of this Zion, that cha- 
racterized the life of him, whose memory, we, 
this day, delight to honor. 

There comes to us also from the character of 
the departed, a beautiful and impressive testimony, 
to the power of the religion of Jesus to afford 
strength and comfort to the Christian in his 
declining years. The seeking of perfect repose 
upon Jesus, and a firm hope of immortal happiness 
through his great atonement, in view of approach- 
ing death, is not a recent thing with him, whose 
loss we this day mourn. Through long and weary 
years of bodily weakness and suffering, he has 
sought with extreme diligence and earnest prayer, 
to be prepared for the hour when he should be 
called to stand in the presence of his God. As 
long ago as under the date of February 15, 1864, 
I find the following record in my Journal : " After 
dinner Gen. Van Rensselaer sought a private 
interview with me to converse on his soul's wel- 
fare. He manifested all the humility, sincerity, 
and piety of a child. At his request I prayed 
with him ; and in rising he thanked me cordially. 
I trust that God heard the prayer." The next 



13 

day I find the following record in my Journal : 
" Visited Gen. Van Rensselaer again, and read to 
him the sermon on old age, as he was not able 
to be out on the sabbath." This sermon had 
been preached the sabbath previous; and I 
may remark here, that whenever he was unable 
to attend upon our sabbath services, he so 
missed the privilege of worshiping God in the 
sanctuary, that he desired to have one of the 
sermons read to him, and often accompanied 
with prayer. 

And. I may say without hesitation, and with 
gratitude to Almighty God, that during the five 
years that I have ministered to his spiritual 
necessities, his mind has been upon heavenly 
things. I have never known in the history of my 
ministry, a man who manifested a more earnest 
desire for a full assurance that his sins were 
pardoned, and his name written in the book of 
life, than he who has left us the past week, for 
the spirit land. I have never known a Christian 
who felt more deeply his own unworthiness, and 
his entire reliance upon the merits of Jesus Christ, 
for salvation, than did our departed friend. And 



14 

during long and weary months and years of 
debility and suffering, he was sustained by the 
religion of Jesus. And when in weakness and 
pain, that it was most touching to behold, not 
a murmur ever escaped his lips. When spoken 
to in regard to his extreme weakness, or suffering, 
he would reply by speaking of the goodness of 
God. and the many mercies by which he was 
surrounded. 

He lived also on prayer. If he was visited, 
without the visit being accompanied with prayer 
he felt keenly the disappointment. And for every 
act of kindness, he manifested the utmost grati- 
tude. Whenever I rose from my knees at the 
close of the prayer, his uniform expression was, 
" I thank you." 

Those lips are now sealed in death. The hand 
that has so often been extended, in expression of 
warm friendship, is cold and motionless. The 
form that has been seen for years past, at the 
head of the elders' pew will be seen here no more. 
The places and objects of earth, that have known 
him in the past, will know him no more forever. 
His acquaintance with the sunlight; with the 



beauties of an earthly spring, with material 
objects upon which he has gazed for years, and 
which are hung with vivid associations of child- 
hood and maturer life, has closed forever. Other 
scenes now surround him. Greater realities press 
upon his consciousness. The grandeurs of ex- 
istence have opened before him. Corruption has 
been exchanged for incorruption ; the mortal has 
put on immortality. He knows now what he 
could never have known before of the value of a 
Saviour; the blessings of redemption ; the great- 
ness of God's moral government; the splendors of 
the everlasting throne : the meaning of the words, 
heaven, glory, eternal life. 

But, beloved, we are not simply spectators of 
character, and of death. We have a personal 
interest in them. To each of us death is as 
certain as though it were a past event. The 
connection between our thoughts, purposes and 
deeds, and our future destiny, is as real and 
vital as though we were at this instant expe- 
riencing that destiny. I wish that it were in our 
power to hold your fixed attention to this solemn 
fact. The earnestness of our feeling is expressed 



16 

by the prophet in his cry, "Oh that they were 
wise, that they understood this, that they would 
consider their latter end." We need wisdom to 
make us realize the momentous interests of this 
future ; a future that at any instant may be to us 
a present reality. He is the wisest man, who, in 
his contemplations, plans and hopes, takes in the 
whole of his being. The power of thought has 
been given to us for this, and if it is not used for 
this, to what purpose is it that the Almighty 
One has created us higher than the beasts that 
perish, and but a little lower than the angels 
who live forever ? God has placed us in this 
world, to think o^ another. He has not placed 
us here to grasp at transient pleasures ; to 
give our affections to perishable objects ; to 
make the vanities of the world our supreme 
good. No. As our existence opens in time, 
he teaches us that it is for eternity. A thou- 
sand providences, calamities, whisper in our ear 
the word, eternity. Death comes, and comes 
often, to point us to our graves, and through them 
to eternity. The dread messenger takes up the 
cry : Oh, that they understood this ; that they 



17 

are hastening to the presence of God, to the 
judgment throne ! Oh, that they would consider 
their latter end ! 

Would you/ beloved hearer, give this day, or 
better this week, to the highest ends possible; 
would you improve the hours, to the greatest 
conceivable extent, you would give them to 
serious thought, accompanied with prayer, upon 
your immortal existence. And out of the years 
that some of you have given to the world why 
should you not rescue, a day or a week, for 
your soul, for spiritual profit, for harvests of 
immortal honors and happiness? A week thus 
spent would be more to you than all of human 
life beside. From it would burst forth foun- 
tains, from which would flow rivers of salvation 
forever. From it you would scatter seeds for 
ihimortal harvests. 

Oh, how precious now to our dear departed 
brother, are the hours that he spent in the care- 
ful study of the word of God ! Well do I remem- 
ber during the years preceding his recent great 
infirmities, that I scarcely ever entered in the 

forenoon, his little room, without finding him 
3 



18 

with the Bible in his hand. Month after month 
and year after year this precious volume has been 
his daily companion. And the very last powers 
of his fading vision were given to the study of 
the inspired pages. 

Ohj how precious now to him are the many 
pages, through which his desires and aspirations 
ascended to heaven! 

How precious now, viewed from celestial heights, 
are the improved opportunities of regularly wor- 
shiping God ill his sanctuary on earth ! 

How precious the improved opportunities of 
contributing to the maintenance of Christ's church 
and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom ! 
The language of a dying Christian benefactor 
might have been uttered by our departed friend : 
" What I have spent is gone, what I have lost is 
gone. But what I have given away I carry with 
me." 

How precious was the act of repentance for sin, 
the yielding of the heart of Christ; the public 
profession of faith, the struggles to conquer the 
world, and to be faithful to the Master, unto 
death ! 



19 



Tell me not in mournful numbers, 
Life is but an empty dream ; 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real ! life is earnest, 
And the grave is not its goal, 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment and not sorrow, 
Is our destined end and way j 

But to act, that each to-morrow 
Find us further than to-day. 

Lives of true men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 

And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time ; 

Footprints that perhaps another 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main. 

A 'forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
Seeing shall take heart again. 

Let us then be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate ; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait.'' 



THE DEATH 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 



THE LATE STEPHEN" VAN EENSSELAER. 

At a meeting of the Consistory of the First Re- 
formed Church of Albany, held Tuesday, May 26, at 
twelve o'clock; present: Rufus W. Clark, President; 
Charles Van Zandt, John Mc]N"aughton, J. 0. Towner, 
Elders; John E. Page, George "W. Carpenter Jr., 
James H. Gross, Edward Douglass, Deacons ; the fol- 
lowing resolutions were unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, We have received with deep sorrow the tidings of 
the death of the senior member of this body, Elder Stephen 
Van Rensselaer, therefore. 

Resolved^ That while we bow in submission to the dispensation 
of an all- wise and holy Grod, we cannot but mourn the loss of 
one greatly endeared to us by the ties of personal friendship, 
and the attachments formed by a long and harmonious connec- 
tion with him in various services in promoting the interests of . 
religion in this community. 

Resobeit^ That .we bear, with profound satisfaction, our testi- 
mony to his munificent liberahty to this church, to the various 
public educational institutions, to the societies for the extension 
of the Redeemer's Kingdom, and to every department of Christ ■ 
ian charity. 



22 



Resolved^ That our gratitude is due to Almighty God for the 
abundant evidences that our departed brother has left of his 
preparation to meet his pious ancestors, who, after having for 
nine successive generations worshiped God in connection with 
our church organization, have been called by the Great Master 
to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, in Heaven. 

Resolved^ That we extend to the bereaved widow and children 
our sincerest and warmest sympathies in this hour of their great 
affliction, and we commend them to the Heavenly Father, who 
will cause all things to work together for good to them that love 
Him. 

Resolved., That these resolutions be placed upon the Church 
records, and that a copy be sent to the sorrowing family, with 
the prayer that the God of all grace and consolation would 
sustain, comfort, and bless them. 

EuFus W". Clark, 
President of Consistory. 

Geo. W. Carpenter, Jr., Secretary. 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

At a special meeting of the Board of Directors of 
the Young Men's Christian Association, held Friday, 
May 29, 1868, the following resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted : 

Whereas, God, the disposer of all things, has in his Provi- 
dence, removed by death one of our life members, our venerable 
and honored friend General Stephen Van Eensselaer, 

Resolved^ That, while we bow in submission to His divine 
will, we sincerely mourn his loss. That in him we have lost a 
personal friend, a public benefactor, and an earnest supporter of 
our Association. 

Resolved^ That we hereby offer to his bereaved family, in this 



hour of their deep affliction, our condolence, and that we commend 
them to our Heavenly Father, who alone can afford them that 
comfort which will sustain them in this severe trial. 

Resolved^ That we attend his funeral, and thus pay to him the 
tribute of respect which we sincerely entertain. 

Resolved^ That these resolutions be entered upon the records 
of the Association, and that a copy be transmitted to the family 
of deceased, and also published in the daily papers. 



At a meeting of the Board of Lumber Dealers, held 
on the 27th inst., the following resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted : 

Whereas, It has pleased the Sovereign Disposer of all events 
to take out of this world our landlord and friend, General 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, whose intercourse with us has been 
distinguished by fairness, considerateness and courtesy; there- 
fore. 

Resolved^ That we deeply deplore his death and feel that in 
him we have lost a firm friend, the community a useful and up- 
right citizen, the poor a bountiful benefactor, and the church a 
cherished and charitable member. 

Resolved, That we sincerely sympathize with the bereaved 
family, and as a tokeil of our respect and condolence we will 
attend his funeral in a body. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to 
the family of the deceased, and that they be published in the 
daily papers. 

Dean Sage, 



'7 

Vice President. 



Chas. B. Nichols, Secretary, 



24 



At a meeting of the Albany Institute, held May 27, 
1868, the following resolutions were offered by Mr. 
Charles M. Jenkins, and unanimously adopted : 

Remlved^ That in placing the name of Stephen Van Rensselaer 
upon our records, with the many cherished and respected names 
which have been so recently and rapidly added to the list of 
deceased members, we find an occasion and call for the most 
truthful and befitting expressions of our regret, sorrow and 
sympathy. 

That by the death of Mr. Van Rensselaer the Institute has lost 
one of its earliest and most efficient patrons and supporters, and 
the surviving members, in common with our citizens, have lost 
the presence and living example of one, whose generous charities 
and benefactions have been quietly but effectively continued 
during a long life ; whose love of justice and regard for the rights 
of others were strong by nature, and invigorated by constant 
exercise ; whose respect for truth and detestation of deceit were 
always deeply felt and vigorously expressed; whose wealth was 
never used as a means of oppression or aggrandizement ; and 
whose long-cherished Christian hopes could largely trust to 
that measure of forgiveness which he had established in for- 
giving his debtors. 

That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded by the secre- 
tary to the family of the deceased, and that they be published in 
the city papers; and that, as a farther mark of respect, the 
Institute will attend in a body at the funeral of Mr. Van Rens- 
selaer. 

James Weir Mason, 

Secretary. 



9'^ 



From The Aldamj Argus, May 26, 1868. 
DEATH OF STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

Stephen Van Rensselaer, the " patroon " of Albany, 
died yesterday in the eightieth year of his age. An- 
other, and one of the most prominent, of the "old land- 
marks" of this city — one of the connecting links 
between the earliest history of Albany and the present 
generation — has passed away. His death, the result 
of the infirmities of age, had been anticipated for nearly 
two years past. 

Gen. Yan Rensselaer was the only son of Stephen 
Yan Rensselaer, the " Old Patroon " of Albany, by 
his first wife, who was a daughter of Gen. Schuyler of 
revolutionary fame. Alexander Hamilton, who was 
his uncle by marriage with another daughter of Gen. 
Schuyler, drew up the leases on which the manor of 
Rensselaerwick was rented. 

Gen. Yan Rensselaer never sought ofiicial honors. 
He lived a quiet and unobtrusive life ; but he leaves 
behind him an enviable reputation for the sterling 
virtues which distinguished the race from which he 
was descended. The Manor House was always the 
home of an elegant and refined hospitality. He was 
liberal in his benefactions, and dispensed his wealth 
freely to all charitable objects, and to the church, of 
which he was for many years a prominent member. 



26 



From The Albany Morning Express^ May 26, 1868. 

DEATH OF GEN. STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

Our old citizens are rapidly passing away. Within 
the last few months especially we have been called 
upon to record the death of an unusual number. To- 
day Gen. Stephen Yan Rensselaer, the venerable Pa- 
troon is added to the list. He died yesterday afternoon 
in the eightieth year of his age. We have not at hand 
at the late hour of receiving the intelligence the facili- 
ties for preparing a record of his life. It extended, we 
need not say, over all of the active and growing 
period of our city's history; and with many of its 
enterprises, especially since the death of his honored 
and esteemed father, his name has been identified. 
He was a man of generous impulses and public spirit. 



FUNERAL OF STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

This funeral was largely attended yesterday afternoon, 
and the services were unusually impressive. The fol- 
lowing were the bearers : Governeur Kemble, of Cold 
Spring; Jacob H. Ten Eyck, Esq., Hon. Erastus 
Corning, Harmon Pumpelly, Esq., H. H. Martin, Esq., 
Major Gen. Jno. Tayler Cooper, Hon. John Y. L. 
Pruyn, of Albany; Henry Burden, Esq., of Troy; 
Howard Boyd, Esq., Gen. S. Y. R. Talcott, Charles 
Yan Zandt, Esq., Col. John 0. Cole, of Albany. 



27 



Officiating Clergymen — Rev. Drs. R. W. Clark, W". 
B. Sprague, of Albany ; Rev. Dr. Yermilye, of I^ew 
York ; Rev. Dr. Kennedy, of Troy. 

Physicians — Thomas Hun, M. D., James P. Boyd, 
M. D. 

At 3 o'clock the casket was brought down in the hall, 
and a prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Clark. The 
procession moved to the First Reformed Church in the 
following order in carriages : 

Porters, clergy, physicians, elders of the church, 
deacons, the members of the Albany Institute, lumber 
merchants in a body, hearse, relatives, servants, friends. 

The clergy, physicians and bearers wore white linen 
scarfs, and the servants were clothed in black clothing 
and black kid gloves. The service at church consisted 
of reading portions of Scripture by Dr. Kennedy, 
sermon by Dr. Yermilye, prayer by Dr. Clark, bene- 
diction by Dr. Sprague. 

The remains were conveyed to the family grounds in 
the Albany Cemetery. The attendants filled thirty 
carriages. 



From The Neto York World. 
STEPHEN VA.N RENSSELAER OF ALBANY. • 

It will be the duty of the Albany Institute, of one of 
the departments of which Mr. Van Rensselaer was 
president, to prepare an accurate necrological notice. 
In his connection with the Institute, he kept bright the 



28 



chain of succession from his distinguished father's 
service in the old Society of Arts, of which Chancellor 
Livingston and Surveyor General De Witt were also 
members. 

Mr. Yan Rensselaer's social position had no superior 
in our country, and yet no man could be less preten- 
tious than he was. Indeed, we thought that he did not 
evince sufficient interest in the historical associations 
of his family, whose history, unlike the great mass of 
the people of the 'New World, had an unbroken career 
of intelligence and respect and opulence, possessed 
before their emigration hither, and never changed 
or lost. The present manor house, which has few 
beyond it in all that constitutes an elegant residence, 
is more than a century old, and has, what is so rare in 
the mutable fortunes of our land, in all respects now as 
when it was built, the same friendly associations. It 
has been enlarged, and possessed of the advancing 
comforts and luxuries of modern art and taste, but the 
iron figures of 1765 yet designate when it rose to 
succeed a former manor house whose halls had opened 
to the hospitalities that met the best names of the 
colonial period. 

Mr. Van Rensselaer enjoyed all the advantages of his 
name and fortune, in an education and association with 
the most cultivated society of this country and of 
Europe, at a day when in Great Britain the greatest 
names in literature were yet represented by the living. 
While in Paris, he saw the return of the first Napoleon 
from the dreadful campaign of Moscow, and forty 



29 



years after, saw the rejoicings and pageants that graced 
the third ]S"apol eon's rehearsal of the awful tragedy of 
war. 

When, after his first visit to Europe, he returned to 
Albany, he took possession of the large mansion in 
^N'orth Market street, a structure which in that day was 
supposed to present the last degree of excellence in 
house architecture, and whose capacious and abundant 
apartments yet remain to prove with what broad ideas 
of the elegance of housekeeping it was designed. 
When Mr. Yan Rensselaer succeeded, under the relin- 
quishment of Madame Yan Rensselaer, to the manor 
house, the dwelling had other occupants ; but it found, 
many years afterward, a tenant who brought to it an 
honored name, an old family, and a broad judgment of 
what a gentleman should be, when John A. King 
made it during his administration, the executive man- 
sion. As "The Young Patroon's House " it was for 
many years one of the remarkable buildings of Albany. 

By courtesy of the new, and by the attachment of 
the old citizens, the designation of Patroon was 
pleasantly given to the gentleman whose decease is 
just chronicled; although for almost all his life, it was 
known that he would not, as did his father, come to the 
possession of the entire manor. What magnificent 
estate was that manor — twelve miles of land, wooded, 
watered, cultured, tenanted — each way — north, south, 
east and west, from the doors of the manor house. It 
was an inheritance of unquestioned opulence, and it was 
held by the Stephen Yan Rensselaer who died in 1839, 



30 



in all the advantages of great wealth, and in the respect, 
and in the esteem of the people on and around the 
manor. Of the miserable subterfuges to escape from 
the obligations of contracts, whose only weakness had 
been in the kindness of the owner of the fee-ephemeron, 
which owed all their life to the craft of short-lived 
political cunning — of these, it is not necessary to speak. 

Even an elective judiciary respected the right too 
much to allow them more than temporary triumph of 
dishonor. The estate left by the Old Patroon was 
sufficient to endow with great wealth all the descendants. 
So much of it as came with the manor house, felt the 
accretion in value, which belongs to the neighborhood 
of a prosperous city. Its value heightened with all the 
progress of trade and commerce, and at last, the manor 
house itself is with all its beauty of park and garden, 
its treasures of flower and foliage, closely surrounded 
by land that for purposes of traffic or residence, is in 
every foot, of augmenting value. The old stone mill, 
a curious illustration of the customs of afar gone feudal 
time, is itself by the very gateway of the house. 

Of course, the social life of Mr. Van Eensselaer as of 
his predecessors at the manor house, as well the house 
of 1765 as of those which preceded it, was surrounded 
by all that was most agreeable in the intercourse of the 
educated and cultured people of the colony and of the 
state. Yet the hospitalities of the manor house, bright 
as may be their associations in many hearts of past or 
present joyous hours, have a more enduring and more 
valuable life. The manor house has always been distin- 



31 



guished for its courtesies and kindnesses to ministers 
of the gospel, with broad interpretation of the highest 
place among men. So the dying missionary Aheel 
found it, and so a long record of good men have 
experienced. l!^or did its liberalities stop at its portals 
or find only the clergyman. It was long a tradition 
among Christian men and women in Albany, names 
now seldom heard, forgotten of earth but remembered 
of heaven, how the Old Patroon sent to that godly 
man, old Henry Fero, when on his death-bed, not 
merely liberal provision for his necessities and com- 
forts, but humble entreaties to be remembered in the 
dying saint's prayers. 

In the simple ways of those times, it seemed to 
heighten the satisfaction of this incident in these Christ- 
ian people's recollection, that this was done while the 
Patroon was in his congressional duties at Washington. 
Do thoughts such as these come over men's mind in 
this hour of fever at the Capitol ? 

Mr. Van Eensselaer's life illustrates the general 
progress of luxury in our society. Those incidents of 
variety and elegance in equipage, of the most costly of 
books in private library, of sculpture, of the artistic in 
the dwelling — all these possessed so profusely and by 
so many now were, in his younger years most and best 
to be found at his father's residence. He was accus- 
tomed to hear the paternal estate spoken of as a proverb 
of opulence ; and what is so rarely known among us, 
his whole life saw no practical diminution of it, for I 
believe it to have been true that the incom.e of his own 



estate, though not a fractioD of the great manor, was 
equal to or more than that enjo3^ed by his father, the 
rise of productiveness having supplied the difference. 
With him passes away the name which seemed to be 
almost in itself an appendage of the manor. 

I alluded in the commencement of this article to the 
duty of the Albany Institute in relation to the deceased. 

It is of the most gratifying of the literary announce- 
ments of the day that the History of the Great Manors 
of this state, is now in preparation by Meredith Kead, 
Esq., of Albany. This gentleman has won for himself 
the commendation of the learned in Europe and here 
by his researches concerning Henry Hudson. He has 
delicacy of taste, the skill of composition, and has that 
also, without which it is impossible to write history — 
a patient perseverance in that hard labor which insists 
on the truth. 

The history of the Van Rensselaer manor will be one 
of the most valuable chapters in the annals of E'ew 
York. From the day this seeming wild purchase of 
transatlantic soil presented itself to the dealer in jewels 
and precious stones, till the hour when he first arrived, 
Van Rensselaer saw that the broad acres of the Hud- 
son and Mohawk were better even than the diamonds 
of the court of the Stadtholder — all these years give a 
varied and pleasant history, changing men and chang- 
ing manners; but yet so much of the old time is left as 
even in 1868 to permit us to chronicle as a chapter of 
public interest the death of the Patroon. 

Sentinel. 



33 



From The Christian Intelligencer, June 4, 1868. 

GEN. S. VAN RENSSELAER. 

After protracted illness, this widely-known and be- 
loved friend, on Monday, May 25th, departed from this 
life at the Manor House, Albany, in the eightieth year of 
his age. The funeral solemnities were held on Friday 
afternoon. At three o'clock the relations, ministers, 
pall-bearers, and a large circle of the friends of the 
deceased assembled at the Manor House, where prayer 
was made b}^ the pastor, Rev. Dr. Clark. The company 
then proceeded to the North Church, which was densely 
filled with a deeply attentive and sympathizing audience, 
and the funeral services were solemnized. Dr. Ken- 
nedy, a former pastor, read select passages of Scripture, 
and gave out an appropriate hymn. Dr. Vermilye, also 
a former pastor, made an address. Dr. Clark offered 
pra3'er, and Dr. Sprague announced the closing hjaim 
and gave the benediction, wdien the procession was 
formed,' and the body was conveyed to the family 
burying ground at the cemetery in West Troy. 

The occasion was one of great interest, and much 
feeling was manifested by the large assemblage, and by 
many venerable men, the life-long friends of the de- 
ceased, who followed him to his burial. Thus the 
grave has closed over one long known and much be- 
loved in social circles, an elder for many years in the 
denomination, whose attachment to the church has 



34 



been shown by steadfast adherence to its worship, and 
by many instances of unostentatious liberality. In a 
good old age, amidst the affectionate regrets of multi- 
tudes, he has at length been gathered to his fathers. 



LBJa15 ^ ^ 



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